


attention, attention

by aerials



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 20:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13061958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerials/pseuds/aerials
Summary: Billy loves attention and typically, he’s always on the receiving end of it - positive or negative. In Hawkins, it’s no different, as he kind of gets the attention from everyone. Everyone except Steve Harrington that is.





	attention, attention

First impressions are key to establishing any kind of relationship with anyone. Billy had found early on that even a bad attitude had it’s perks, while some may have cowered at merely his confidence and loud mouth, a lot of others swooned. Boys, girls, it didn’t matter and very quickly, Billy grew to love having all eyes on him. See, Billy loves attention and typically, he’s always on the receiving end of it - positive or negative. In Hawkins, it’s no different, as he kind of gets the attention from everyone. Everyone except Steve Harrington that is.

The first time Billys eyes set upon Steve it’s from across a crowded room. It’s Halloween and Billy was slightly buzzed, not just from the keg stand he’d obliterated in the back yard but from the sheer adrenaline that came with everyone cheering him on. Girls were leering at him, guys were slapping him on the back. In just a few short minutes, Billy had de-throned the reigning king of Hawkins, Indiana and all it had taken was his ability to hold his alcohol, it was almost pathetic. Billy didn’t know much about the previous king, he’d only seen him in passing once as someone had pointed him out in the hallway at school; ‘ha, that’s your competition, King Steve - nobody can master a keg stand like him’. At first it was a challenge, Billy liked to be on top and if taking away Steve’s crown was what it took then he’d gladly do it with the most sinister of smiles. That had been the plan at least, even still as Billy made a beeline for him through the hoards. Everything changed when they were face to face, when everything he had wanted to say was lost because Tommy cut in to speak while Steve was taking off his sunglasses and Billy was suddenly falling deep into pools of beautiful hazel, unable to tear his gaze away for even a second.

Falling back into the party was easy, with another drink in his hand Billy worked the room with expert charm. He’d lost count of how many girls he’d wooed, how many had fallen all over him, how many guys had dragged him away for more drunken party practices. All the while his mind was drawn back to the cold expression that had been painted across Steve’s features, how easy it was for him to turn away, wholly unimpressed by Billy’s prowess. Billy was both frustrated and unusually turned on by the prospect that Steve could be the only one that wouldn’t fall over his every word.

Weeks pass and Billy is still fruitless in his efforts to gain the attention of Steve Harrington. Billy can’t remember the last time he worked this hard for anything, except maybe raising the money for his car but even that physical exertion in yard work in the hot summer sun were minor in comparison. Steve remains unfazed and often out of sorts, Billy notices, or maybe he really is just that bad at basketball. Practices seem to be their only interactions and Billy uses them to test the waters, his idea of blocking coming in the form of pressing close against Steve’s hip, all sweaty and shirtless, with lips spilling words that are laced with sarcasm. Steve tells him to shut up and Billy checks him to the ground, stealing the ball to take a shot. When he looks back, Steve is still on his back and languidly Billy approaches to reach out a hand. He thinks about the position they’re in and how perfect Steve looks on his back, drenched in sweat, with his legs parted. He feels Steve’s hand heavy in his own, holding too tight and he wonders how that grip would feel against his naked hip or thigh and instantly there’s a rush of blood shooting straight to his groin. Billy bites back a word of advice and drops Steve back to the floor, striding to the bleachers to grab a drink, a breath and to will away the semi growing in his shorts.

Billy catches himself asking about the elusive King Steve at school because while it was said that he was popular, he never sat with the ‘popular’ kids. In fact, Billy was hard pressed to find Steve at lunch at all and he often pondered where he ate his lunch, if he even ate at all and it was such a silly thought if he didn’t care and Billy definitely didn’t care. Billy just can’t figure out why Steve is the only one not begging for his attention at lunch, why to Steve he’s so invisible. He perhaps does ask about Harrington a little too much, to the point that Tommy brings it up to him one day outside of the cafeteria between puffs of his cigarette and Billy shakes it off, says he doesn’t want to lose the game season because Steve keeps flaking out. It’s a slip of the tongue really, like he can hardly help himself, but Billy grows too accustomed to the way Steve’s name sounds rolling off of his tongue that he starts to say it in private. Let’s it roll off in whispers while his hand is curled firmly around his cock, stroking laboriously in his weakened attempts at jerking off quietly when his parents are just a couple rooms away.

After a while, Billy has just about given up. Steve seemingly disappears for a while and Billy uses the time to focus on anything but Steve, working out and spending time with a girl from his class and pretending. So much pretending, it’s exhausting. See, Billy spends his nights restlessly dreaming of hazel eyes and coiffed hair and jeans falling to the floor as fast as Billy can drop to his knees. He wakes in a sweat, with a problem in his pants, it’s almost routine and Billy hates it. He hates how much he loves the thought of Steve riding him like it’s his fucking job, he hates the thought of his own lips around Steve’s cock and the sound of his name pouring form Steve’s mouth among a slew of cusses as he’s coming hot into Billy’s mouth. It’s the only time he does get Steve’s attention and, really, it’s the only time he could ever really act on it. In the privacy of his own room, with a chair propped up under the handle, with everyone else asleep. As beautiful as women are, and despite the poster he has pinned to his closet door, they just don’t do it for Billy but being forced to act straight is a price he has to pay, because Neil Hargrove can’t have a faggot son. It’s the only time Billy has ever played by the rules.

Everything is good, he supposes, he plans a date and he doesn’t think about the way Steve practically ignores him. He thinks about himself and how good he looks in this new pair of jeans and he slaps cologne on because he knows his date loves the smell and he craves the recognition. Everything is good, his mood included, until his father comes home and everything is shattered. Billy can already feel his back bruising from where he’s pressed hard against shelves and at least he’s feeling something other than longing for once. Because if Billy is being honest, it was never really about attention with Steve but more so tricking himself into thinking he wasn’t falling for him. Billy doesn’t let himself cry often but when it does come, it’s frightening. Vulnerability is just another reason for Neil to slap the word faggot onto him like a branding, Billy deals with it quickly and quietly, avoiding his father as he storms out of the house and begins his search for Max.“Nancy? No, no. Not my type,” Billy explains when he’s standing out front of the Wheeler household and it’s so quick, like he’s never never been so sure of anything. Because Nancy has nothing on the near six foot brunette with insatiable thighs that Billy just could not stop thinking about. Mrs Wheeler doesn’t know that however and Billy is expert at playing make believe, because Nancy’s mom is giving him attention and a little flirting is getting him all the information he needs. Though he doesn’t expect that information to bring him face to face with Steve Harrington.

“Am I dreaming or is that you, Harrington?” Billy asks and it’s lighthearted, surprisingly so. Like he’s not being crushed under the weight of his fathers words and the way his hand had collided with his face and how because of that he could only ever desire Steve in his dreams. The only place he really saw him anyway.

“Yeah, it’s me. Don’t cream your pants,” Steve shoots back and it’s so monotone, so uncaring that it’s frustrating. Steve has no idea the way Billy agonised over him, how many nights he’d spent curling his toes into sheets as he came at the thought of Steve underneath him, legs wide and open for him. It fires that anger and Billy wants to believe that it’s because Steve is still paying him no mind. Not even Billy’s open shirt and chiseled physique is enough to draw Steve in and he begins to think that it’ll never happen. Billy always wanted what he could never have.

“My 13 year old sister goes missing all day and then I find her here with you, in a strangers house, and you lie to me about it,” Billy utters, his tone low and it’s not seductive, it’s not suggestive. It’s full of hate and spite and all he can hear is his father calling him a faggot and demanding he watch out for his sister. Step-sister, Billy reminds himself because he doesn’t have a sister, this wasn’t something he ever wanted and he sure as hell wouldn’t be running around in the middle of the night looking for her if it weren’t for the deep rooted fear of being at the receiving end of his fathers fists. Everything moves so quickly then, adrenaline coursing through Billy’s veins, his hands clenched at his sides. It’s like he blacks out, becomes the monster his father had so readily created. Deep down maybe that’s why he wants attention so much because it’s never something he could get at home, Max was the pride and joy and she wasn’t even his actual daughter and Billy? Billy was the disappointment, the thing that should have been eradicated instead of his mom and Billy struggled to deal with that every single day.

Billy isn’t sure how he ends up straddling Steve Harrington but it’s not in the way he ever imagined. There’s a lot more clothes involved and his knuckles are bruised, bloody because he’s hitting Steve with such veracity, using each blow as a way of eliciting every ounce of pent up anger that had been building like a rolling storm within him. Because Steve is there and he’d stepped into something that otherwise wouldn’t have involved him and Billy see’s him as a better brother, son, friend and all round person than Billy is and that’s a bitter pill to swallow. It all makes sense, why Steve wouldn’t pay him any attention and suddenly being the new king of Hawkins seems like just a title. Something Steve had passed on all too easily, because it came with the bad reputation that clung to Billy like velcro and fair-weather friends that only cared about his ability to drink everyone, even Steve, under the table. It’s a lonely reality that hits Billy like daggers, right through his heart, because when he really thinks about it he has nothing worth fighting for anymore, he’s just fighting in spite of himself and he’s beating the shit out of the one person that had made him feel anything deeper than lust.

First impressions are paramount for establishing relationships and while everyone else fell over his charm, Steve was the only one to see him for the monster he was portraying himself to be. Because sometimes a steel coat and a bitter tongue was better than facing the harsh reality that he was broken and just in need of a little attention. In that moment, when he's laying on the floor feeling hazy from the drugs Max had pumped into his neck, he thinks about how easier it would have been if he'd just allowed Steve to be the one person to see under the facade, to stop pretending just for once but the way his knuckles throb says he won't ever get the chance.

 


End file.
